motor sport
Race to Disaster – The Ards TT
The phone vibrated on my office desk. A glance to see the notification… email… subject line, “TT Film”. Curious, I locked the work laptop and read the message… it was about the Ards TT. Dear Colin, I came across your website in the course of doing some research for a film I am making for the BBC […]
Read More...
Elliott Zborowski – Death on the Corniche
1 April 1903, the motoring greats were set for the literal high-point of Nice Week – the hillclimb from Nice to La Turbie. 1903 was planned and expected to be a huge year for the sport, and Mercédès in particular. There were 12 of their 60hp machines in Nice, including a brand-new one for Count […]
Read More...
Avenues & Alleyways – The 1903 Mercédès Limousine
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what value a location? To stand on a street corner and watch the world scurry past. To stop and smile at the thought of the excitement, innovation, history that once filled a space, so mundane today. The Mercedes-Benz entry for the 1952 Rallye Automobile Monte Carlo […]
Read More...
Ici Repose Jean Behra
Follow tramline 1 in Nice towards its northern extremity – until it is just you and some shoppers heading to Saint-Sylvestre. Hop off at Gorbella – walk past Lidl & Monoprix. Take a left, up the hill – to Mont Claire Virenque – and there opposite the lycée you will find Cimetière Saint Barthélémy… and […]
Read More...
Friderich, Père et Fille – Bugatti, Nice
It’s 24 February 1932 – the event is the Rally Paris-St Raphaël Féminin – the woman is Renée Friderich. She is 20 years-old, and today – as her friend & mentor Hellé Nice sets fastest time – she will lose her life at the wheel of this Delage D8-S. It was a bad accident, perhaps […]
Read More...
Bill Mason’s Finest – Racing Mercedes
How lucky we are that film-maker Bill Mason shared our passion, and used his talent & time to leave a legacy for future generations. From the outset, that first Shell film of the 1949 British Grand Prix, Bill’s work attracted & inspired followers of motor racing. Increasingly, as the decades have passed, the films have […]
Read More...
The Road to Ballyshannon – Gordon Bennett
It’s not so much raining as there’s more humidity than the sky can bear. It pattered down most of the night. Now it hangs in the air – spritzes as you walk. I quietly leave the rooms, grab a cap from the car, and walk to the town square. Past the Gordon Bennett memorial plaque, […]
Read More...
Chasing the Ghosts – Gordon Bennett
I’ve always considered ‘Racing Daydreams’ to be an attitude. The willingness to look beyond presented information, armed with some knowledge and an empathy for times & people past. How better to explore and take joy from our sport? Similarly approached, locations too can rattle the senses. Standing in silence at the top of Dundrod. Inhale […]
Read More...
40 Years of Daydreams
This Sunday, Ferrari will line-up a pair of turbocharged, ground-effect Grand Prix cars on the Imola grid for their two, young hot-shoes. And I will smile, perhaps raise a glass. Think about what motorsport has given me, and those no longer with us. The day after the 2022 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, Monday 25 April, will […]
Read More...
Sascha and The Ace of Clubs
Small cars hold an attraction – I would imagine since les Frères Renault first took-on the Edwardian giants – and the idea of a smaller car as a generally more efficient machine has held sway. An efficient use of resources, or merely a more stressed & stressful way of covering the same distance? I suppose […]
Read More...